Perpetual Bliss

Who can ascribe a form to Him who is beyond all 
bounds and shapes? 
One can only laugh at those who babble that 
He is thus and thus and thus. 
He has no hands or feet or limbs or parts: 
How then can humans picture Him? 
His radiance is that of a billion Suns and more: 
How can the mind hope to reach Him? 
’Tis formless Force; to grasp It whole - 
Who can venture? Who can claim success? 
’Tis Atma with no fixed Form, since Time began, 
Illumining Space and the boundless vast 
He, the Ever-existing with no birth, no death 
Sans beginning, middle or end, 
Unborn, undecaying, deathless 
He is the Atma, the Timeless, the Eternal Supreme.

Embodiments of love!

Since dawn this day, from every tongue, the words, “Happy Birthday” “Happy Birthdays” have been resounding. What exactly do these words mean? Are the words used with awareness of their significance, or, are they spoken as a conventional form of social etiquette? Such doubts do arise.

The English word “happy” has as its equivalent in Telugu Samtosham. We shall probe into the implications of the expression Sam-tosham. ’_Tosham_’ signifies prasannata (delight). The prefix ‘_Sam_’ denotes that the delight has been won through righteous and honourable means, that is to say, through ‘detachment’ and ‘sacrifice.’

When Discontent Disappears Delight Is Established

One has to give up desires that enslave and imprison, that bring sorrow in their train. Desires can be grouped under two heads: desire for an object or experience that no one else has earned, and desire that the object or experience one has earned should not be earned by anyone else! Both these desires are indeed ridiculous. What is desired is as illusory as one’s shadow. The faster you run towards it, hoping to seize it, the farther it is from your reach. When you pursue desire, it flees; when you scorn its hold, it submits like the shadow that follows you when you turn your back on it. Desires are born of greed. When greed is weakened more and more, discontent declines in equal measure. And, when discontent disappears delight is established.

Prahlada, as the Bhagavatam text declares, was rooted in the faith in God Narayana and His Universal, Absolute Reality. His father, Hiranyakashipu, however, was drawn by external forms and the limiting names. Therefore, Prahlada was rooted in ananda (Bliss) wherever he was, in whatever set of circumstances. Hiranyakashipu was ever worried and anxious, caught up in the multiplicity of names and forms.

Those who are in such bliss as Prahlada had will have an aura around them and an effulgence on their faces. People can derive joy watching their faces and yearn to have that experience again and again. The faces of the worried and the anxious will infect others too with similar feelings.

In Deep Sleep Man Is In His Native Core

Besides, Delight endows one with great power also whereas anxiety robs one of the strength he has. True delight cannot be acquired by effort or produced artificially or maintained by design. No course of sadhana (spiritual effort) can be prescribed to enable one to gain ananda. For, one is, in fact, the very embodiment of ananda. But since he has failed to identify his truth, he is seeking it from outside, from the objects around him. For those who have realised that they are the Eternal, the True and the Pure Atma, ananda is ever accessible.

Ananda is Brahman; the Bhagavad-gita teaches this truth in many ways. The very name Prahlada has ananda soaked in it. ‘_Hlada_’ means ananda and the prefix ‘Pra’ indicates that the ananda is ‘full.’ Prahlada means ‘Full Bliss’ - “a person who is full of ananda.” How could Prahlada attain that state? He gave up attachment to his name and form and sought the Atma as the only reality and identified that reality with Narayana.

Every man is privileged to taste this Bliss during Susupti (deep sleep). In that state, he is not conscious of his name and form, nor do any of his senses function. So, he is then in full Bliss, his native core, his very birthright. This is the reason why he seeks it so restlessly from the moment he awakes until the moment of sleep, unaware of the inner spring which is its unfailing source, engaging himself in the pursuit of knowledge and skills for earning a living.

Knowledge, wealth, power and status are all capable of granting only worldly pleasure or joy or exultation. Of course, whatever the extent or nature of this joy, it must be realised that it is a amsa (particle) of the supreme ananda of the Atmic awareness, the impact of Brahma ananda (the Limitless Vast). The mansion of a millionaire may have many evidences of his wealth but each is a particle of the Grace of Lakshmi (Goddess of Prosperity). Men may derive joy from their enormous wealth, deep scholarship, or physical prowess, but each of these is really a ray emanating from Brahmanandam. The ray is reflected differently from different media but the source is One and the primal essence is one.

Proof Of Our Innate Divinity

Ananda (Supreme Bliss) is immanent in every thing in Creation, for ananda is Brahman (the Universal Absolute). Everything is Sat (Being), Chit (Awareness or Consciousness) and ananda (Bliss), that is to say, Divine. Everything ‘exists’, the ‘existence’ is the Sat capable of Becoming. Next about Chit (awareness): the capacity to be known and to know, to gain awareness and to grant awareness is Chit. When we take with us a child to a fair or market or an exhibition, it asks for answers to endless questions, What is that?” “Why is it so?”, “What is its name ?” This yearning to know is the sign of Chit. In spite of our seeing so many dying around us and hearing about as many more deaths, though we witness the misery and the suffering of so many, we long for a deathless and sorrow-less life. We spend fortunes to lengthen our lives. That is the urge of the “_Sat_” in us. The longing to know is the expression of the “_Chit_” in us. The third proof of our innate Divinity is the urge of ananda in us. Without exception, every one is motivated by this ananda urge.

Purity Of Mind Is Enough To Obtain Divine Grace

However, these urges have each two aspects - the impression (internal) and the expression (external). Sat has, for example, the being and the becoming. The process of becoming is what the Gayatri prayer asks for “Awaken my intellect, heighten and expand my awareness (prachodayat).” Becoming is through expanding, manifesting wider and more varied forms. The Upanishats declare, “He is everything that exists both inside and outside.” Antar-bahischcha tat sarvam vyapya Narayana sthitah (Narayana permeates everything inside and outside all this). He cast His look and it all happened.

The Become is a reflection of the Will that urged the Being; so, the Being is the Becoming. It changes from ‘Is’ to ‘Was’; it is unstable, while Being is stable. Being is the screen and Becoming, the pictures that flit across the screen. When there are no pictures, who will be drawn to the screen? How can pictures be seen, when there is no screen? The fleeting and the fixed are inextricably dependent on each other.

The objective world is but a series of momentary pictures impinging on the mind. The mind is active in the walking stage of the body. The body is built up by Annam (food), maintained by Annam and disintegrates through Annam. The body has five sheaths, the outermost one, the Annamaya Kosha (food sheath). It is known also as the sthula (gross body). The next three sheaths, the Pranamaya (vital air), the Manomaya (mind), and the vijnana (intellectual) form the sukshma (subtle) body. The subtle body is active in the dream stage also. The fifth and the inner-most sheath is the Anandamaya (Ecstatic, the Blissful), the Karana (causal body).

The expression of the urge of ananda is as Love and Delight. Delight is the product and projection of Love. The expression of Chit is awareness. The expression of Sat is Becoming. Divinity is the Unity that manifests in Diversity, the One as the Many. The One is the efficient cause as well as the material cause of the Many. The One is inherent in the Many and shines in the Many which It has become. The ONE is the source of the highest and the most lasting ananda.

Brahmanandam Is Native To Man, His Very Source

The ananda we get when hunger is appeased by a meal is short-lived. Hunger afflicts us again before long. However sweet and tasty the food may be, it causes nausea when consumed in excess quantity. The mythological bird Chakra is said to feed on moonlight only but we can be sure a surfeit of that will certainly be unwelcome to it. Even nectar will cloy when one continues to eat it endlessly.

Brahmanandam, however, is different. For, it is native to man, his very source and sustenance. The purpose of human striving, through stage after stage of spiritual progress, is to attain that. A fish placed in an artistic golden gem-studded bowl is miserable. It has no ananda, for it has no water. Water is its home, its real source and sustenance. Man too must reach his original home, however far he may wander. Tyagaraja sang: “Birds, big and small, before nightfall seek the tree where they can rest. I hold Your Feet In my grasp; save me, Oh, Rama!” The Bhagavatam makes it more explicit, “For every living being, the best course is to attain the source from which it originated.”

Be Reminding Yourself “I Am Not Different From God”

There exist many flooded streams on the globe. Where has the water come from? The ocean, of course. Consider the impediments the streams have to overcome before they attain the source! The flooded stream of human life has originated from Brahmanandam and it has to attain the source from which it has come away. In order to succeed, man must recollect the ecstasy of Brahmanandam every moment, in every activity.

Tyagaraja revelled in the ananda that poetry, music and scholarship can confer but since the ananda that learning can confer (Vidyananda) was liable to weaken, he considered it only as a particle or foretaste of the Brahmanandam he sought most the ananda derivable from the Universal Eternal Delight, the Nirguna ananda Brahman, That ananda is man’s reality, for, man is God.

God is neither distant, nor distinct from you. You are God. You are Sat-chit-ananda (Being, Awareness and Bliss Absolute). You are Asti (being), Bhati (awareness), Priyam (bliss). You are all. When do you cognise this Truth? When you shake off the delusions which hide the Truth. If your yearning to experience Brahmanandam, the Sat-chit-ananda is sincere and pure, from this day, keep ever in your memory what I am about to tell you:

1. “I am God; I am not different from God.” Be conscious of this always. Keep it ever in mind. “I am God; I am God. I am not different from God.” Be reminding yourself of this. Pray that you may not fail in this sadhana (spiritual exercise).
2. “I am the Akhanda Para-brahman (Indivisible Supreme Absolute).” This is the second Truth to be established in the consciousness by unremitting repetition and prayer.
3. I am Sat-chit-ananda (“Being, Awareness, Bliss”).
4. “Grief and anxiety can never affect me.” Develop this Faith and convince yourselves of this Truth by repeated assurance and prayer.
5. “I am ever content; fear can never enter me.” Feel thus for ever. Pray that this conviction grows stronger and stronger. Exhort yourself, “O self! Utter ‘Om Tat Sat’, ‘Om Tat Sat’ the threefold symbol of Brahman. As the physical body is maintained healthy and strong by the Pancha-pranas (vital airs), these five prayers will endow you with the “awareness of Brahman,” which is the same as “the status of Brahman Itself.”

Divine Bliss Is The Goal To Be Ever Kept In View

Do not demean or condemn yourself as low or small or weak. The body is but a vehicle for the journey through life. Do not mistake it as your self and impose on yourself its ups and downs. You purchase a car and possess it for the sake of its usefulness, not for keeping it under lock and key in the garage. The body-car should be put to the best use, for attaining Brahmanandam. The four goals of human life - dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha (right living, right earning, right desiring and release from worldly bondage) are the wheels of the vehicle; the wheel inside that steers these four is the mind. The buddhi (intellect) is the switch. The air which fills the tubes in the tyres is faith and the destination is ananda.

Ananda is the breath that sustains life. That is the goal which has to be ever in view, while navigating the ocean of one’s life. Even the least trace of ananda that one derives is but a reflection of Brahmanandam. One has to keep this in mind. Anything done or said or seen is but the prompting of the Brahman that is one’s reality. Have faith in this fact.

In order to develop and deepen this faith, certain spiritual practices can be undertaken. Do not feel separate from God and consider Him as the Giver and yourself as the recipient. This smacks of commerce. It is wrong to plan for getting some wish granted in return for what you offer. God will not pay any attention to your material greed; He watches the heart and its contents. Believers in God have not understood God if they bargain with Him and clamour for worldly goods. Hence, from ages past, they have suffered misery. The Divine seeks and rewards only Divine qualities, virtues and conduct.

The Highest Virtue Is Humility, Surrender To God

The body is transient and the joy it seeks and gets is equally transient. The ananda one gets through meditation on the Atma is as lasting as the Atma. When Godhead assumes a body, It too is unaffected as the Atma. Nothing can confer as much ananda as virtue, neither wealth, nor material power, nor fame, nor scholarship. The highest virtue is humility, surrender to God. People speak of those who have no one to look after them as ‘orphans’ but God looks after everyone. So, no one can be an orphan. God alone is the anatha (without a leader), for who can claim that he is God’s guardian?

Dedicate thought, word and deed to God. Do not treat some of your activities as done for God and others as done for yourself. They are both like the two halves of a pulse grain. The plant sprouts from the middle of the grain, drawing sustenance equally from both halves. The alert and the inert, the living and the non-living, the moving and the non-moving are all God. Strengthen this faith, live in this faith. This is the prescription for perpetual Brahmanandam.

Birthday Discourse, Prasanthi Nilayam, 23-11-1983